Maggie O’Halloran is an herbalist and educator in Central Florida. She comes from a large family where chaos was the norm. She always found peace outside watching things grow or climbing magnolia trees. She learned in her mother’s kitchen that the things you put in your mouth impact your mind and your body.

In the early 90’s she first found her own inspiration to view health from a holistic perspective while working as a teacher assistant at a mental health hospital for children. From that experience, she decided that there had to be a better way to help kids beyond medicating them to a zombie state with pharmaceuticals. She started college studying education and psychology ultimately received a bachelor’s degree in Human Development and Masters in Educational Leadership.

In 1999 she took her love of plants to Oakland, California where she worked with inner-city elementary students and teachers, learning and teaching about violence prevention and anger management through physical education and body awareness with Playworks. She explored working with food, exercise, breathing, and communication skills. She continued to study plants and their medicine by sharing with friends.

In 2006 she moved to Florida to find a slower pace in life. Though her love of teaching hasn’t waned, she took the opportunity to focus on deepening her plant knowledge in a more intentional way with Emily Ruff and The Florida School of Holistic Living. Since then she has found inspiration from teachers like Rosemary Gladstar and David Winston. She continues her passion for helping people find peace by sharing her knowledge with whomever will listen. She enjoys working with friends, family, and strangers seeking a more holistic way to be healthy.

These days she can be found hiking on trails, tending her garden, creating something good for you in her kitchen, teaching in her community about plant medicine, and learning from her ten-year-old herbalist and his friends.

Emily Ruff is a community herbalist who has practiced the art and science of plant healing for over a decade. Her studies have taken her around three continents where she has studied under healers of many traditions. Her background in gardening and botany came in childhood while wandering the wilderness and digging in the sandy soils of Florida with her grandfather, a tobacco farmer turned urban gardener, and her father, a botany and astronomy professor. Her journey into herbalism continued through apprenticeships in Guatemala under the tutelage of local healers on the southern coast of Lake Atitlan, in the mountains of Vermont at the feet of Rosemary Gladstar, and in the Central Florida apothecary Leaves & Roots with herbalists Carolyn Whitford and George D’Arcy. Emily’s academic studies include Ethnobotany, Philosophy, and Women’s Studies at the University of Central Florida and Curanderismo with the University of New Mexico. She is a Bach Flower Registered Practitioner.

Emily’s dedication to preserving bioregional medicinal plant traditions and ecosystems led her to become active in the organization United Plant Savers. Inspired by a need for greater connection among her regional community, she founded the Florida Herbal Conference event in 2012, an event that continues to sell out annually. In past years, she served multiple terms as president of the Herb Society of Central Florida and as co-founder of Homegrown Local Food Cooperative. Most recently, in response to the tragic shooting at Pulse Nightclub, Emily founded the Orlando Grief Care Project. From the community relationships cultivated through the national response to this tragedy, Emily formed the Herbal Action Network to continue weaving the web of compassionate herbalism into community engagement. Emily is an instructor in the Herbal Academy Advanced Herbal Training Course. Sharing her time between Florida and Vermont, she currently serves as director of the Sage Mountain Botanical Sanctuary.

Emily’s classes have been described as “heart-filled,” “enriching,” and “empowering,” creating a bridge between the teachings of our ancestors and the technologies of our modern world. Emily can be found in joy cooking, practicing yoga, writing, photographing flora, creating music with family and friends, and digging her fingers in the dirt. The plants continue to be her greatest teachers.

Christina Lynch is a growing community herbalist who desires to share her knowledge and passions with those around her. She is a first-generation American, with her lineage deriving from Barbados. Taking great desire to reconnect to the earth, continuing the spiritual and physical connections with the earth as her ancestors once did, her intent is to assist others in starting or continuing their journeys in becoming one with themselves.
She is currently the Vice President of Accounting & Finance for The Gabor Agency in Tallahassee, Florida. She has her Master’s degree in Human Resources and Employment Relations from Penn State University, and her bachelor degrees in Accounting, Finance and Human Resource Management from Florida State University. She has 13 years of professional experience in corporate accounting, human resource management, risk management, business plan development and strategic planning. She has also assisted numerous small businesses improve administrative operations, develop and maintain bookkeeping practices, and provide training support through her consulting firm, Trydent Consulting, and the Small Business Development Center. Christina is an avid tea lover, recovering foodie and cultural explorer.

Wilnise Francois is a Haitian-American Licensed Nurse and Herbalist that has worked in the allopathic modality of healing for over a decade. Working alongside physicians and caretakers alike facilitating wellness to those across the life span. Her role as an herbalist expanded with the personal need and integration of herbal medicines from her coveted traditional Haitian practices and studies in Western herbalism. As an herbalist, she is working to revolutionize the cultural affinity of our plant friends through our relationships with the earth and stars. Her aim is to integrate the very love our herbs show us and implement that essence into our daily lives; creating a lifestyle of health and wellness.

Shay DeGrandis is an artist, community herbalist, writer, death midwife, accidental comedian, and well-meaning but amateur therapist working in the Orlando area. She is a recent graduate of the Florida School of Holistic Living Community Herbalist Program and received her BFA from Florida International University (via New World School of the Arts), her MFA from the University of Maryland, College Park, and went on the study Art History at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She loves to spend her time in her garden, chatting with the plants.